


Rise to the Sun

by Lafayette1777



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: 70th Hunger Games, Eventual Prostitution, F/M, Flashbacks, From before first book, Gen, M/M, PTSD, To after Mockingjay, finnick's life, multi-chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafayette1777/pseuds/Lafayette1777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Two years after winning his own games, Finnick is faced with mentoring two new tributes. With this, the descending spiral of his life begins, despite his and his unexpected ally Annie Cresta's best efforts.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Oceans and Streams

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter of multi-chapter fic about Finnick's trials and tribulations, up until his death. Comments welcome!

The last remnant of one of District Four's mild winters is blowing across the bay the morning Finnick throws the match with unnerving precision. The lifeboat, it's name now rather ironic, erupts in flame but keeps floating off into the distance, into the endless ocean. He shivers against the breeze. The small crowd at the edge of the cliff watches the boat disappear into the distance before letting the flowers slip from their fingers and be engulfed by the surf ten feet below. 

Twenty minutes later, only two boys are left to stare at the horizon in silence. 

“We should go soon,” Lucerne says after a while, his voice too quiet. His face betrays any airs of stoicism he's trying to put on. “Since you'll be on stage and all.”

“Can we head back to the house first?” Finnick asks. “I need to grab something.”

“Okay, but we'll be cutting it close.”

Their feet carry them downwards over the sandy earth, past the marina where the anchored house boats sway slightly on the water. The children of those boats will already be in the city square, sorted by age and gender—Finnick knows this because he used to be one of them. Another few blocks and they pass the nicer neighborhoods, with houses on land, whose owners run the fishing industry rather than fish the gulf themselves. They, too, have been herded together in preparation for the games. Finally, the gate to the Victor's Village emerges in the morning sunlight, the wrought iron sparkling over already flowering gardens. A granite fountain bubbles in the center of the circle of mansions, about half of which are lived in. 

Orabelle Maddox calls to the brothers the moment they step in range of her yard, which is perfectly groomed, but certainly not by her. Her patience with such matters has worn far too thin.

“Finnick!” she shouts, sprinting toward him quite unnecessarily. But they are used to it, as Orabelle runs everywhere. Even when sitting, she fidgets uncontrollably, with her face, her clothes, any nearby objects. Wait too long and she will have taken apart all pens in reach and peeled off every piece of paper from a notebook, ripping each page into inch by inch pieces. “I've been looking for you. There's been a change of plans—Nixie can't get out of bed and you're next in the rotation.”

“What?” Finnick nearly chokes.

“Christ, you're saying he has to mentor?” Lucerne demands. “He's barely home and you've got to send him off?”

“Well, it's not up to me!” she screeches at him, in a matter that is definitely a little unhinged. Her hair's a mess, which isn't all that surprising, and for the Reaping she has dressed in cargo pants and a t-shirt, making her look even thinner than she is. “The Capitol works up the rotation, and you think they give a shit if he's just home?”

“Right,” Finnick mutters, wiping all emotion from his brain and giving her a charming smile. “Tell Nixie I hope she feels better.”

What he doesn't tell her is the thought that is screaming uncomfortably loud in his head, that he's probably going to be the shittiest mentor that ever lived. He was a child, then, and regardless of his looks he's still a child now.

His games feel like a past life; a blur of fear and exhaustion and blind instinct, punctuated by photographic, crystal clear memories of his eleven kills. Some in self defense, some not. Most thanks to the trident. By four kills, and given his age, Mags had to practically beat back the sponsors with a stick. He was the favorite, and so he won. 

Last night, he dreamed of killing Zylia Ramorko. Female, district seven. His final adversary. A split second opening while they fought on a sand dune and suddenly blood was spurting from her lips. The cannon had made his ears ring. 

He'd seen her family on the victory tour. Even smiled at them in that way that is so trademark to him. 

But his mind is blank. He must remember that. 

He and Lucerne head further into the Village, pass some of the semi normal victors, which even in a Career district are hard to come by. Eldoris Wane won the sixty-first Hunger Games, and he married Nami Lark, winner of the fifty-eighth. Their children are wonderfully oblivious. Tallulah Maeda survived the fifty-second, and she's kept herself sane with Mayim Carino, who somehow manages to accept the exacerbated the idiosyncrasies of the occupants of the Village. 

Tallulah and Mayim wave to him as they trot down their front steps. He can't quite see the women's faces from his distance, but they look almost sympathetic. 

Morgane Shanet is as well put together as ever as she passes Lucerne and Finnick on the cement path around the fountain—her eyes are directed at the ground, as though denying the brothers existence. Her fashionable shoes click on the cold sidewalk and her hands are held deep in the pockets of her coat. Emeron Daytonal walks with her when she reaches his house, but she doesn't bother to look at him either. 

“The cheery bunch is on the move, I see,” Lucerne nudges Finnick in attempt to lighten his spirits. “I suppose we should be on our way.”

“Yeah, lemme get a jacket,” he murmurs in response, leaping up the front steps to their own house. Inside, it is the cleanest of the Village, only because in the two years the Odairs have lived in it, they still don't have anywhere near enough stuff to fill it. He takes the stairs slowly, half hoping that if he's really late to the Reaping they'll have to pick someone else to mentor this year. In reality, all he's going to get for tardiness is a scene with the peacekeepers and a Capitol headline. 

He pauses at the threshold of his father's room, peeking in at the items they'll have to sort through. But then again, in a house this big, maybe they don't need to ever get rid of anything. They can just close the door and the room can cease to exist. 

He's already back downstairs before he realizes that he's forgotten to get a jacket, but he shrugs and decides that he's survived worse.

Outside, Lucerne raises an eyebrow at his lack of outerwear, but is immersed in a conversation with Mags. When she sees Finnick, she lets out a string of syllables that translate approximately to, “I'm sorry about your father. Eddie was a good man.”

“Thank you,” Finnick manages to reply, before she's hugged him and kissed him on the cheek in her usual motherly fashion, even when he was bloodied and shaking, minutes after crawling out of the arena.

“There are worse ways to go,” Lucerne sighs, and because of his blunt nature that Finnick has never doubted, he continues, “Like the Hunger Games, for instance.”

He may be right, but the fact remains that Finnick is now an orphan at sixteen. At least Lucerne is an adult, at twenty-four, and at least he still has memories of their mother. And at least he's never had to kill anybody. 

But Lucerne smiles comfortingly at him, and Finnick can't even hold on to a shed of the resentment from a moment before. The three of them hobble at Mags' pace toward the Reaping, the day warming as they go. For a second, Finnick can pretend he's years younger, that he's woken up to the sounds of the sea lapping against their boat and is walking to his half day of school. It used to be that the afternoon would be spent fishing with his father and brother and hundreds of other men and women, out on the cerulean waters, breathing in time with the waves. When he turned ten they'd saved up enough money, and Lucerne had just become ineligible for the games, allowing Finnick to head off to Career school each day after standard education. 

“It doesn't mean that we expect you to volunteer, Finnick,”his father had explained calmly. “It's just to make sure that if you ever do get reaped, you won't have a disadvantage. It's to give you the best chance of winning.”

That had soothed him somewhat at the time. When it happened, he remembers his father nearly weeping, whispering that he was young but he would do just fine. He was a bad liar. 

The past is not something he cares to think about anymore, because it is almost entirely unrelated to his life now. No worries about fish quotas, no worries about being Reaped, no father. And still, somehow, the universe has remained spinning. The seventieth Hunger Games are beginning, and Finnick is now caught in their gravitational pull like everyone else.


	2. Of Roads and Rivers

Lucerne breaks away into the back of the crowd the moment they enter the tightly packed town plaza, and Mags leads Finnick up to where the previous victors stand to watch the choosing. They seem to be the last people in all of District Four to arrive. Finnick stretches his shoulder blades slightly, relaxing his whole posture and pasting on the perfect hint of a confident smile. 

Their Capitol escort, Fontanne Chayif, has festively worn a suit made of shimmering goldfish-like scales, with a blue tie to match his hair and nails. His eyebrows, too, have been dyed aqua, and little blue topaz gems have been imbedded in his front teeth, glittering when he smiles widely into the microphone. “Welcome, welcome! What a lovely morning for a Reaping, don't you think?”

A couple of male, Career looking boys cheer from down in front of the stage. Fontanne locates them and sends them an approving smile. 

“We'll begin with the ladies, of course.”

He takes the few steps over to the bowl of names on his left, dipping one hand, and with one flick of his wrist removes a paper. In one smooth motion he's strided back to the microphone and slid one finger under the seal of the stationery. 

“Annalee Cresta.”

Finnick immediately knows she lives on land, from the alabaster of her skin, so she must be pretty well off. Which means she's had at least the base line Career training, though it's clear from her expression of utter shock that she didn't expect to be picked, and certainly not to volunteer. No one cheers as she makes her way to the stage, in a pristine white dress complementing her darker, reddish hair. Though he hasn't known her name before now, he's eighty percent sure that she's a year ahead of him in school, having seen her around. No one volunteers in her place either, which means it must be a gap year for the female tributes considered ready to enter. 

“And the gentlemen,” Fontanne continues cheerily. “Dorien Ashby.”

For a second no one moves, and there are a chorus of cries from the older male sections of, “I volunteer!”

“I believe this boy called it first,” Fontanne points into the crowd. “Yes, you, come on up.”

The boy who removes himself from the eighteen year olds is stocky and of average height, his gait one of practiced confidence and intimidation. He's a Career, undoubtedly, but his skin is tanned and his hair a bleached blonde, so he still lives on the water. He wears a simple buttoned down shirt and clean pants, clearly the nicest clothes he owns.

“What's your name, son?”

“Shizue Remar.”

“Excellent! Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the tributes from District Four, to compete in the seventieth Hunger Games: Annalee Cresta and Shizue Remar!”

The same boys cheer as before, though slightly disheartened that they didn't raise their voices quick enough to be on stage themselves. 

Seconds later, the tributes are lead into the town hall, and Mags is poking him in the same direction. He barely has time to register that both his tributes are older than him, and yet he is expected to save one of their lives. 

It's only noon, and so far it's really not been his best day ever.

m m m

In the town hall, the tributes are lead to separate rooms and given time to say good bye to their families. Finnick is left to stand awkwardly while Fontanne gushes to the Mayor about what exciting time of year the Games are. Thankfully, Lucerne appears after a few minutes, beckoning him into a corridor away from the other two men. 

The hallway is carpeted in red, the walls a similar color but with gold accents. There are no windows, so lamps cast a sepia glow every few feet. It's fancy, but only in a district sort of way, because it's far too understated for the Capitol. They pause a few feet in, just far enough away so that Fontanne's voice is barely audible. 

Lucerne seems to just take him in for a second, towering a head taller and making him feel much younger than he is. Finally, his expression becomes a melancholy smile.

“What?” Finnick asks.

“It's just nice to know that on this trip to the Capitol you're definitely coming back.”

He hugs him abruptly then, and Finnick murmurs into his shoulder, “If I have any say in it, at least.”

They pull apart. “I'm sorry you have to be alone in the house,” Finnick says blankly.

“Better me than you,” Lucerne gives him another once over with eyes identical to his own, and a moment later two Peacekeepers appear in the corridor with them.

“Finnick Odair?” one calls to him.

“Yeah?”

“The train is getting ready to depart.”

He begins to follow them but Lucerne grabs him again. “Is there anything you need from the house? We could probably convince them to let you—“

“I'm fine,” Finnick interrupts, because to not leave at this very moment would be to lose all mental bracing he's been building since Orabelle told him this would be his duty. 

“Alright then,” Lucerne waves to him one last time before the Peacekeepers have escorted him around the corner. 

m m m

On the train, he watches Shizue eat rabidly, sucking down anything protein rich in arms' reach. Annalee isn't eating at all, but simply arranging and rearranging the numerous collection of utensils situated linearly around her plate. 

“Honey, the smaller ones are supposed to go on the outside,” Fontanne explains, but she brushes him off with her eyes still on her work. 

“That's ridiculous. The little fork and the little spoon should go together, and the middle fork and the middle spoon, and so on,” she retorts, a touch of irritation in her voice.

“Who told you that?” Fontanne asks, bewildered.

“Is it not obvious?” she snorts, meeting his eyes for a fraction of second. “Manners never have any logic to them.”

Finnick, having observed the odd pair for a few minutes, speaks up. “So, Annalee, have you had any career training?”

“It's Annie,” she replies.

“Hmm?”

“I go by Annie,” she looks up from her cutlery for just long enough to throw him a surprisingly radiant smile. “Yes, I had some. Never very had much natural talent, though, is what my instructor said.”

“Who was your instructor?” Shizue asks, drawn in by the smile from a moment before, and having just swallowed a huge shred of sirloin.

“Acheron Cuyler,” she answers, and Finnick is familiar with the name. Like many Career trainers, Acheron had tried to volunteer for the Games but had been drowned out by other boys.

“Oh, I had Moselle Lié.”

“I thought so. When she came around to Acheron she mentioned a Shizue a few times.”

“Really?”

By now, Annie's lifted her head permanently from her plate, and they're smiling at each other amiably. Certainly not devastated by the misfortune of being Reaped. 

“So, that's good,” Finnick butts in, only a little uncomfortable. “You guys should be able to run with the Career pack in the arena.”

“That's what you did in your Games, right?” asks Shizue.

“Yeah, it worked pretty well...I mean, until it didn't.”

He just _loves_ how no one mentions that he killed all his allies in their sleep once they'd tracked down most of the outer district tributes. He loves how he has a hard time putting that sentence together in his head, because it sounds so surreal, like something out of a nightmare. 

There's a silence among the four while his face betrays him, but he's quickly pulled back on the charming, easy going smile. “We'll be in the Capitol in a few hours. I suggest that you get something to eat, take a short rest in your compartments, because it can be a bit overwhelming.”

He slinks off as inconspicuously as possible after that, back to his own luscious compartment. He can appreciate it now better than the first time he rode in it, after his own Reaping, where he could barely keep his heart rate down long enough to focus on taking a breath. His room is gifted with a queen sized water bed, covered in forest green silk sheets. It seems like a crime to waste a bed like this, and so he climbs and falls asleep sooner than he ever expected.


	3. When In Rome

The sun is setting when Finnick awakens, cushioned by the water bed that he's already trying to figure out how to procure for his own home. Figuring they must be in spitting distance of the Capitol by now, he slips back into the common space, where Fontanne and Shizue are having a subdued conversation over more food.

“Where's Annie?” Finnick asks.

“She went to get some rest,” Fontanne replies. “If you wouldn't mind waking her, we're almost there.”

Finnick nods, then directs his attention to Shizue. “The carbohydrate loading is a good idea, but you'll want to be careful if you start to feel sick. The food here is a lot richer than ours.”

Shizue shrugs, and it's blatant that he's mentally asking, _how old are you again, Finnick?_

Finnick lets the matter drop, heading back down the length of the train to where Annie's compartment most likely is. She's got the one in the caboose, which means she has the best windows. He's about to knock when a sniffling sound stops him.

“Annie, are you alright?”

“I'm fine,” she answers after a long pause and the sound of shuffling footsteps. Her voice is tight, and undeniably shaky. “I'll be out in a mo'”

She appears as the door slid open, her white dress rumpled, combing down her hair with her fingers. Her eyes are red rimmed. They stare at each other, as Finnick wonders what in the hell he is supposed to say to this. Can he honestly tell her that everything will be fine? That she has a good chance of winning? At least that one would be less of a lie, because in District Four the tributes usually do have a pretty good chance at victory. Not the best, but he's still extremely thankful that at he's had the luck to not be born into District Twelve, because in his entire life he's never seen one tribute out of there that had one iota of the odds in their favor. 

All he can think to say is, “I know,” even though it doesn't quite make sense to anyone else.

She brushes past him, but it's not a dismissal, because he follows her down the hallway and she keeps talking, nearly at a whisper. “I didn't want to show that in front of Shizue. Weakness and all...”

“I can imagine.” His district partner had been a Career girl four years older than him, called Oceania Biltmore. She was in it to win it, but he'd killed her first, possibly out some subconscious scorn for how she hadn't spared him a glance in all the time before they were dropped in the arena. He's seen her family a few times when he's out shopping town, and they studiously insist that he is invisible while desperately avoiding eye contact, as this would be contrary to their notion, even if Finnick is in the world of the living and perfectly discernible. He has no problem with the arrangement, because he knows there's not a thing on this earth that would make them forgive him. 

Annie's breathing has returned to normal as he follows her back into the dining room. She greets the others cheerily, as though she, too, is thrilled to be a part of the most wonderful of celebrations in the glorious, eternal nation of Panem.

m m m

“The stylists are meeting us in the tribute's suite,” Fontanne whispers conspiratorially after the train has stopped. The elation in his voice is palpable when he speaks again. “You won't believe who we have this year! The twins!”

“Who?” Finnick asks. He wracks his brain for memories of last year's Games, but can produce nothing on stylists. He chocks it up to being slightly comatose after his victory tour, just about the time the Reaping was coming around again.

“Nebula and Nova! Don't you remember? They did marvelous work with District One last year.”

Still, nothing is ringing a bell, so he mirrors the enthusiasm of Fontanne with a swift, shining smile. 

They ride the elevator up to the fourth floor, all those from the District a little unnerved by the rapid ascent and all simultaneously failing at hiding their discomfort. The tribute dwelling is as beautiful and fashionable as ever, redone since his time their, and presumably every year. Every chair is somehow both cushy and chic, the chandeliers classic, yet modern. The floors are all a black tile with little sea shells imbedded every few centimeters. An ebony marble fireplace is situated at the head of the dining room table.

Standing by the massive dining table, which is already piled high with snacks, are too seemingly identical people, with identical postures and identical smiles. Both are barely five feet tall, wearing what appear to be plain black suits. Their hair is black, pulled back into tight, identical pony tails that are speckled with gold. Their skin is pale as ice, in contrast to black lipstick and black eye shadow. But the shadow is not so simple, he sees, when one of them blinks and reveals tiny patterns of stars and galaxies over each lid.

“Oh, it's such an honor to meet you!” Fontanne rushes forward, hand thrust out. He is ignored by the two tiny people, who seem to be gender nonspecific. Instead, they easily step around Fontanne and approach Annie and Shizue. Finnick realizes that their suits are not plain black at all, but with each steps fireworks of a thousand colors explode silently all over their pants and jackets. 

“These are the tributes, yes?” one asks, in a strange, drawling Capitol accent.

Annie manages a nod. 

“I am Nova,” one says, reaching a hand forward to gingerly shake Annie's, at the exact same time as the other says “I am Nebula” to Shizue. 

“We are going to make you the favorites,” they say in unwavering unison.

Annie and Shizue are lead off by Nova and Nebula, back in the direction of the elevators.

“They're a bit weird, aren't they?” Finnick remarks to Fontanne, who is still looking miffed after his lack of acknowledgement.

All Fontanne can manage is, “Genius works in mysterious ways,” before stalking off to get ready for the chariots that evening. Finnick is left with the suite to himself, and no one else in the whole city to talk to. 

Really, though, that's not strictly true, because though he knows only a handful of people, the entire Capitol knows him.


	4. In Able Hands

A few hours pass, and then Fontanne reappears, having changed from his goldfish scale suit to one that's a light green and covered in layers of tulle fabric. His hair has been redyed to a blinding white, his eyelids accented with the same color. 

“Is that what you're wearing?” he asks, when he sees Finnick nearly enveloped completely in one of the lounge chairs, eating sweets from a little pile in his hand. He's still wearing what he'd worn to his father's send off that morning—a clean pair of black pants and a denim, button down shirt. 

“Am I supposed to dress up too?” Finnick says, trying to keep the skepticism out of his voice. From previous years, all he can think of is the tributes during the chariot rides, because obviously the attention was entirely focused on them.

“You have so much natural beauty, Finnick, why wouldn't you want to dress up?” Fontanne says, reaching for one of the cherry red cupcakes an avox has just deposited on the dining table. “I bet I could find you a stylist whose finished with their tribute who would just love to get you ready.”

“I suppose that would be—“

“Fantastic! I'll go find someone, don't move!” and with that Fontanne scurries away, leaving Finnick extremely apprehensive. He's realized that he'll need to seem familiar and approachable to possible sponsors, but he can still vividly recall the god awful pieces his stylists would force him into during his games. 

m m m

He meets up again with Annie and Shizue an hour later.

They look a little raw, standing unsubstantially by the pure white horses that will pull their chariot. They're supposed to be careers, but they certainly aren't playing the part. 

Nebula and Nova have done an alright job, though, better than they did his year. Annie wears a strapless, floor length dress that is a deep, cold blue. With each slight adjustment little white capped waves spring up in the fabric and break against each other. It's a clever illusion, but clearly made by someone whose experience with the actual ocean is limited. There is a elegant slit running up the side of her leg to mid thigh, revealing black fish net tights. Her straight hair is pulled back in a bun, accentuating her bangs and the sharp angle of her chin. Her make up is subtle up close but striking from a distance. Shizue wears a suit of the same almost realistic waves, and his hair has been slicked into a perfectly aligned side part on the right side of his head.

Annie smiles at him as he approaches her, that bright, somewhat sudden smile that he saw on the train. Before she'd seen him she had been arranging the bangles on her wrist so that they were flawlessly allineate. Shizue had been watching her, his expression unreadable.

“You look wonderful,” he tells them, and he does mean it. Now they just have to act like it. “But you look too nervous, I'm afraid.” He points in the direction of the District One and Two tributes, three of the four of which are leaning casually against their chariots, putting forth a predatory but amused stance and gaze. One girl has her eyebrows pointed slightly in the middle, giving her face a wolf like intensity. They aren't messing with their outfit, or trying to cast subtle but clearly anxious glances at their competition. “If you are to be Careers, than you must adopt the notion that everyone else is irrelevant. You're the only ones above cannon fodder.”

“Is that what you believed?” Shizue asks.

He ponders it for a moment, tries to think back to his own chariot ride. He'd brought to life that cocky grin that everyone seems to like so much, that somehow makes him look both inviting and like an asshole all at the same time. No wonder Shizue's tone is vaguely accusatory—regardless of what Finnick believed at the time, he certainly looked like the world was in his hand, the games at his mercy. 

“Doesn't matter what I believed, doesn't matter what you believe now,” Finnick replies, cleverer than he expected. “Consider yourself an actor.”

'Cause that's what this whole thing is anyway. A show where the only option is to play your part. 

The anthem begins to play outside, and he can hear the screams and the stomping feet of the crowd. He's helping them into their chariot just as District One pushes forward into the limelight.

“Smile and wave,” he tells Annie as he offers her a steadying hand, so she can take her place next to Shizue. 

“Why does your hair look weird?” she asks in reply.

“I let a stylist get a hold of it,” Finnick smiles. “God knows why.”

He managed to veto several of Lortana's original ideas, but she's ended up with some small victories, including a very confusing light purple sweater and hair rigidly spiked. 

“Oh, well, I think you got off easy then,” Annie quips, just as the horses begin to pull them forward. He watches her until District Five blocks her from view.

m m m

 

The victors have been seated in a neat little row, right in front of where the president will give his address. Finnick recognizes most of the other mentors, as much by their tics and idiosyncrasies as by their well known faces. Johanna Mason of District Seven has clearly been dressed by a stylist, but is showing her indignation by taking out one of her earrings and using it to clean under her fingernails. Haymitch Abernathy of District Twelve is wearing a tan leather jacket with several red wine stains, not bothering to hide his frequent swigs from a faded metal flask. Wiress Lurner of District Three has taken apart her watch and, without the slightest bit of hesitation, is putting each tiny piece back into it's original working order. District Two's Brutus Marne is using a flat rock to sharpen an already lethal looking dagger, bald head gleaming in the bright city lights.

Finnick is the last to arrive, and all eyes seem to turn to him as he takes his seat between Districts Three and Five. Not for the first time, he's reminded that they're all far more knowledgable than he is, and presumably have fit themselves into some sort of mentoring niche, wherein the tributes are likely to survive or don't have chance in hell. He gets the feeling the outer districts and the older victors lean more toward the latter, and so naturally that particular combination is very common, District Twelve being the best example. He, however, remains undefined in what sort of mentor he'll mold himself into, which explains the eleven vaguely suspicious glances that are sent his way when he turns his head to either side. 

The parade of chariots begins and the crowd, minus the oddball victors, goes completely wild with delight and curiosity. Districts One and Two are looking generically polished, but are lacking in creativity. District Three is a bit rougher, fidgety hands and smiles that drip on and off their faces tentatively. 

Finnick realizes with less horror that he once might have had that he's already calculating the death of each of these fellow children. It's worse than his own games, because it's no longer self defense. 

“And here we have our District Fours,” Caesar coos. “They're looking good and strong this year, aren't they? And as I hear it they're being mentored by Finnick Odair!” 

One of the automated cameras directs itself into Finnick's face and his perfect, cheeky grin is waiting.

“Why, he's turned into a strapping young man, hasn't he?” Claudius cuts in elatedly. “I suppose we'll see how he does as a mentor this year!”

Annie and Shizue are smiling and waving amiably just as they should, and though Shizue is maintaining the ferocity in his smile, Annie has not shed her terror as convincingly as he would prefer. Though this worries Finnick somewhat, he has to concede that she's still doing miles better than the District Eleven girl, whose openly sobbing and causing long black tracks of make-up to run down the sides of her nose. 

The president gives his usual generic address that most of the victors either talk over and or ignore entirely, remaining engaged solely in their own business. Finnick hears Johanna Mason explain to the man next to her that she had originally intended to show up naked, but her escort vetoed the idea and forced some “half retarded” stylist to put her together. Wiress mutters to herself as she begins to take apart her watch again. Cashmere Cerrin of District One is the only one that seems to be able to act like a functional human being, smiling down blankly at the festivities on the street below.

They all rise from their seats to head back to their tributes when the parade wraps up, and he reminds himself, with an involuntary shiver, that these are his people now.


	5. In the Dead of Night

He wakes up screaming bloody murder at three in the morning, clawing at the sheets of the cradling waterbed in his room above the training center. But it's too late—he slips, with a heavy thunk, out of the warmth of the blankets and onto the carpeted floor. He lies there, breathing heavily, throat tight and eyes full of tears, while he waits for the fear and horror to subside. 

He's dreamed of murdering Blush Cerrin, District One female. Seeing Cashmere at the parade today reminded him of her sister, a volunteer that he butchered along with the rest of his year's career pack. He'd killed her second, slashing her throat with his greatest ally, the trident Mags had floated down to him at sunset. Clearly, she'd seen rifts forming in the group and the gift was her way of warning him. 

From the beginning, Mags always favored him over Oceania. Maybe he was just younger, or more likable. It seemed such superficial traits to go on, but it had saved his life. 

He lies facedown on the floor thinking about this, holding back his own painful scream.

This is usually the point in the program where Lucerne appears, having heard his yells. He would pick him up and put him back in bed, tell him it was okay, he was safe now, until he stopped shaking. It's not okay of course, and at three in the morning, nothing will ever be okay again. Lucerne can't know this, by no fault of his own, because he doesn't know what it feels like to have no good options. 

But Lucerne isn't here now, so he lies with his cheek on the carpet for a long while, until he thinks he has the willpower to stand up. Once he does, he can't fathom the idea of trying to go back to sleep, so he shuffles out of his room and into the common space, in a strange combination of exhaustion and hypersensitivity. 

It surprises him more than it should when he finds the television on and just the tip of someone's head visible over one of the swallowing chairs. It's Annie, which doesn't seem surpising at all anymore, and her eyes are fixed, unblinking, on rerun of the various Districts' reapings. She doesn't seem to realize his presence until he speaks from right behind her. 

“Strange how it happens,” he murmurs. “I never took out tesserae, and yet I knew people who had their name in there thirty-five times when I got picked.”

He pauses. He's expected her to jump at the sudden sound of his voice, but she doesn't react in the slightest, and he thinks maybe she knew he was there from the moment he stepped from the dim light of his room. 

Finally, he smirks. “If this tells you anything about yourself at all, it should be that you are extremely unlucky. Welcome to the club.”

She snorts at this, flicking off the television. “What if I win, though?”

“I've heard,” he sits down with a sigh across from her, all traces of mirth lost from his face, “that that makes you the unluckiest of all.”

“I'm guessing that's not what Fontanne would tell me.”

“Fontanne wouldn't know.”

He thinks, for a second, that for Annie to understand this is both rare and extremely important. To know what it feels like to be the last one standing is impossible until you live it, and yet he must somehow convey to her that there is no great rush of glory and clarity. There is only the vaguest preview of what your nightmares are going to feel like. 

He also thinks, for unknown reasons, that Annie might have a better chance at grasping what his life has become, rather than Shizue. 

“Are you saying it's not worth winning? I'm screwed either way?” she asks, her tone nearing toward accusatory.

He shakes his head. “I have no idea what I'm saying.”

“That's right; you've never done this before. I forgot.”

“Sorry,” he shrugs, and in this moment he's sure he's failed. There's no way she can get a hold of what he's talking about. 

She leans back with a sigh. “Me too.”

They fall into a silence he's not quite sure is comfortable, and she doesn't seem to notice. 

He takes this time to appraise her properly, try to shift his mind from tribute to person. She seems so insubstantial in the faded yellow of a street light, filtering in through the window. Her skin too pale and her hair to thin and her arms like twigs. She's ethereal, but he doesn't know if that denotes beauty also. Her auburn hair has been cut into bangs by the stylists, emphasizing her girlishness. She wears a silk night gown, but with matching pants underneath it. She is strange, but somehow that's refreshing. Next to the Capitol dwellers she must be the most honest person he's ever met. 

“You should get some sleep,” his voices sounds unnaturally loud in their little void of noiselessness. 

“Alright,” he's surprised she obeys. Perhaps surprise is something he should get used to around.

Well, perhaps not that used to. She'll be dead in a couple weeks. He wonders what sort of insight she has on what her odds are. He wonders if anybody can really absorb that they don't have much of a prayer. 

Back in his bed, he glues his eyes to the white ceiling, and away from the shadows in the corners of the room. If he lets his mind slink off, then he starts thinking of Lucerne and Mags and home, and eventually, as always, his games. And tonight, for whatever reason, he simply cannot face the usual progression. The Capitol has made him a child again, more so than the early morning does naturally.


	6. Small Things

In the morning, he's met by two haggard, sleep deprived faces, and he wonders idly if this is what Mags had to look at every morning when she mentored him. It brings him down to a whole new level of despair, because seeing them in such a primitive, raw state just reaffirms what is all too likely: that these last few days of humanity, for them, are going to be torture. 

And they'll be torture for him, too, but that's nothing new. 

“So,” he says with a cheery smile, as they take a seat at the massive dining table. “First day of training. I know you both have had some experience with what you'll be seeing down there. It seems logical, then, to focus on any weapons and techniques you haven't seen before, yes?”

They nod, as though moving underwater, while nibbling on the luscious dishes spread out for them. Annie makes fleeting eye contact with him; and he ponders over what she made of their conversation in the night. He himself has already begun to regret it—her natural honesty has made him a little too revealing.

“And, as you know, at the end of the week, you'll have your meetings with the gamemakers. Hopefully, by then, we'll have a good grasp of what you all are best at.”

“At home I was good with spears,” Shizue says, eyes pointed towards his silverware.

“Then I suppose you should try out archery or something,” Finnick replies, smile fading to closer match their expressions of dread. 

Fontanne arrives in the silence after, dragging the tributes toward the elevators with such a repulsive level of excitement that Finnick has to leave the room. 

m m m

The next few days Finnick spends largely unconscious, trying to control his sleep patterns so that he never quite gets deep enough asleep to fully dream. The downside of this, of course, is that he never actually gets fully rested, but that's not all that different from his previous schedule of waking every three hours from violent, unrelenting nightmares that seem to have been made worse by being back in the Capitol. 

At some point, while gazing blankly out the panoramic windows of the fourth floor suite, it occurs to him that there may be things required of mentors while their tributes are off training—he's not sure what these duties might be, but he finds it hard to believe that all the other mentors are satisfied with his level of isolation. He's not sure he can dismiss this thought, once it's entered his mind, even if it would mean putting on real clothes and leaving the cocoon he's created in the apartment. Soon, all he can think about is after the games, after Annie and Shizue have been slaughtered, some mindless Capitol citizen causally mentioning that there was some all important deed supposed to be performed by the mentor during training that could absolutely have saved their lives.

He spends several hours locked in horror over this revelation, and then another hour or so being horrified over how paranoid he's become. When Fontanne shows up for lunch, Finnick sees his chance to ask.

“Fontanne,” Finnick addresses, before the older man can get too distracted by his meal. 

“Yes?” he peers out at him from under mint green eyeliner. 

“Am I supposed to be...you know, awake, right now?”

Fontanne fixes him with a quizzical look for a moment, before grasping his meaning. “Don't worry, son, you're doing just fine. I know you must be stressing over trying to be a good mentor, but trust me, we're all on your side.” He smiles then, as though reassuring Finnick that not catching any fish his first time out on the water happens to everyone. Still, it's the closest thing Fontanne has ever managed to a normal human response, when surrounded by all the not-so-abrupt insanity that is the Capitol in hunger games season. 

“But, if you're feeling restless,” Fontanne says, turning his attention to buttering a roll. “lots of the other mentors spend these three days downstairs socializing.”

Finnick lets this sit for a while, making the mistake of settling in for a nap that he's a little too tired for. He awakes an hour and a half later, heaving great, raspy, hyperventilations, and trying to reign in an impossible heart rate. 

Maybe it's the influence of the nightmare, but suddenly going downstairs seems like a much more plausible idea. 

He pulls on the plainest, most comfortable looking clothes he can scrounge up, throwing them on and pulling a hand through his hair to make it some semblance of tamed. In the elevator, he presses the button marked “0”, which he can only assume is the floor between the training center in the basement and the apartments above. 

The doors open, and he emerges into a high ceilinged room, littered with couches and tables arranged in comfortable patterns for groups to sit in. There's a bar at one end, with an Avox working at double speed to serve the extended line of victors. 

Only a few of the victors are not drinking—the former careers have camped out around a holo screen on one wall, and seem to be watching all the recaps from the parade and the rumor already circulating about the arena and likely frontrunners. They watch in near total silence, occasionally murmuring something Finnick can't hear over the roar of the bar crowd. It's not necessarily a happy roar—some are just caught between laughing and crying hysterically, a few have gotten agitated with each other and are screeching over the din about whatever they deem important. A table has been dragged to the outer fringes of the crowd, and at it he recognizes Johanna Mason, Haymitch Abernathy, Wiress Lurner, and a District Six morphling addict he's pretty sure's name is Jom, all sitting around playing cards. Every now and then Haymitch or Johanna will get up and fight their way through the crowd to get drinks for the table. Finnick takes advantage of the first moment Haymitch slips away.

“Mind if I sit?” he asks Johanna, because she's directly across from him.

She snorts. “I don't think they let twelve year olds gamble.”

“I'm sixteen,” he replies, like it matters.

“Please, sit,” Wiress says in her soft, murmuring voice, barely audible over the bar. Johanna sends him what he assumes is her best witheringly condescending look. Finnick, undeterred, takes Haymitch's seat. 

“What're we playing?”

“Rummy,” says Jom, dealing out the cards. He looks like he might have once been a large man, but the drug has depleted him, hollowed out his eye sockets and accentuated the lines of his face—some of which, Finnick is pretty sure, are from smiling. 

They play for a bit, in a silence he tries to ignore, until Johanna and Jom get into trash talking in good humor over the game, and it gets so outrageous he can't help but make the mistake of drawing attention to himself by snickering. 

They both flash him an unexpectedly identical look. It's a little clearer on Jom's face, but he can see it in Johanna's eyes and the curve of her lips. They pity him. 

And his first thought is, they should.

They pity him because he's young. Because his tributes are pretty much definitely going to die or suffer the same fate as every other victor. Because they can see even clearer than he can that this is his life now, and it's ending a little sooner with every tribute he's going to mentor. They pity him because they wish someone would've pitied them. 

He looks around the lounge at the drunks and crazies and the substance abusers and realizes that they are his people now. 

And that's not quite as disturbing as it should be. 

At this point, Haymitch appears again, handing drinks out to the table and raising an eyebrow at Finnick. “Why the hell are you in my seat?”

“I should probably be heading back up anyways,” he says, beginning to stand. He's not sure, but it seems likely that training will be finishing up soon, because a couple of the careers have trickled away, and Cashmere is the only one left. The rest of the mentors seem to have no concept of time at this point, inebriated as they are. 

He gives the table a once over with that blinding smile of his, earning himself an eye roll from Johanna. 

“Don't smile like that,” Wiress mutters, without looking at him. “You don't have to bother with that here.”

Before he can ask her what she means, movement on the other side of the room catches his gaze. Two peacekeepers are approaching Cashmere, where she's seated primly in one of the recliners. They hand her one envelope, which she doesn't open until they've left. It's across the room, so Finnick knows he must be mistaken, because it looks like she might cry. 

He glances back and finds that the rest of the table has watched the exchange also. Jom, saddened. Wiress, unreadable and twitchy. Haymitch, a burning hatred behind blue eyes. Johanna, her jaw set tight and restraining. 

“What was that?” Finnick asks. 

Jom's eyes appraise him, as though sizing him up, and soon that pity is back. “Nothing you need to worry about just yet.”


	7. Cannonball

“So, how was your day?” Finnick asks them, once they've settled into dinner. He tries to ignore how much he sounds like his father in this one question—because he's managed to suppress his grief in favor of the living, for the time being. Already, though, he can feel the loss creeping up on him again—a painful fist tightening around his chest as he realizes it's all happened so fast. His father dropped dead three days before this year's reaping, and now he's here. Hearing Lucerne sob in the upstairs bathroom the morning after the death feels a like a past life. 

“It was okay,” Annie says, filling up her plate. 

“How did your private session with the gamemakers go?” he asks. “What did you end up doing?”

“Annie threw knives,” Shizue replies, with a short, tender glance in Annie's direction. “She's quite good.”

And Finnick's blood runs cold at the smile she throws back at Shizue a moment later.

“Shizue speared four punching bags with one throw,” Annie grins proudly.

Finnick tries to scrape the emotion from his face, and a moment later, says simply, “Excellent.”

They finish the meal relatively quickly, as the tension in the air over the soon-to-be-revealed training scores is palpable. To keep his mind from his father, Finnick diverts his attention to observing Annie and Shizue, which spurs a nervous and persistent twisting in his gut as they keep up a steady, friendly conversation through dinner and beyond. 

Nova and Nebula appear just a few minutes before the broadcast, identical little smiles twisting one side of their mouths. Today, their outfits are striped with a huge range of colors, and it takes Finnick a moment to realize that they are supposed to be rings around a planet. 

Fontanne joins them too, and they all take seats around the holo screen as the Capitol anthem plays. Finnick notices, a split second before Caesar starts talking, that Shizue has his arm around the back of Annie's seat. 

Districts One and Two get their own generically high scores, beautiful and muscular as they are. District Three is solidly mid range, which means they're probably doomed. Caesar takes his time with the lead up to Four, making it abundantly clear that the young and popular Finnick Odair is mentoring this year's tribute. 

“And now, Shizue Remar...eight!”

Fontanne claps hysterically, and Nova's and Nebula's smiles widen slightly. Finnick does his best to match his reaction to what is good news. 

“Annalee Cresta...five!”

Fontanne tries to keep up the same level of enthusiasm, but fails, dissolving into a coo that is something akin to “It doesn't matter so much, you'll be fine.”

“You deserve better than that,” Shizue says sincerely. 

Annie tries to shrug it off, but her smile is a little too melancholy. 

“We've still got the interviews tomorrow,” Finnick cuts in, doing his best to sound wise and reassuring, though he feels neither. “Nothing is a done deal until then. And it's not always bad to be underestimated in the scores.”

This is more of a guess than anything else—sure, it's worked a few times, but in the overwhelming number of cases the highest scores dominates. Scoring a nine before his games, he would know. 

The rest of the scores become increasingly unremarkable as the District's get farther out, with the exceptions of an eight in District Seven and a two in District Eleven. Annie excuses herself off to bed soon after, as the television feed turns to “expert” analyses of the scores and what this means for this year's entertainment. Nova and Nebula depart without a word, dematerializing, it seems, rather than actually walking out of the room. Fontanne heads home half an hour later, presumably back to his family. 

Then it's just the two of them, and Finnick sees his chance, and takes it. 

“Shizue,” he leans forward. “We need to talk.”

Shizue raises a vaguely condescending eyebrow, but is unaffected. “About what?”

Finnick pauses here, and it occurs to him he has no idea what he can possibly say in this situation. “I think...you need to remember that only one person is coming out of that arena, and there's no point pretending otherwise.” 

Shizue's brow furrows, his jaw tightening. “What are you getting at?”

“I'm pretty sure you know.”

The other boy shakes his head. “Just because I like her—“

“That's my point. You can't save her. You're only going to make it worse for yourself. And even if you could save her, what the hell kind of life are you leaving her with? How is she supposed to go on knowing you, who she barely knows, has ended everything for her?” 

Shizue meets his eyes, the accusation clear. “Am I supposed to let her die?”

“Welcome to the fucking hunger games,” Finnick says coldly, leaning back. “Every man for himself in the end. What if it comes down to it, and it's just the two of you? Are you gonna make her kill you? Make her watch you kill yourself? The best thing you can do for her is leave her alone, because if you don't you're just gonna make it even more horrible for everyone involved.”

“You are one heartless son of a bitch.”

“I'm being realistic. You have to realize you have no good options, just like the rest of us.”

Shizue gets up and stalks off without looking back. 

Finnicks drags himself off to bed, trying very hard not to question his motives for telling off Shizue.

It's for his own good.

m m m

He dreams, of course, dreams of his father dying in the arena, on the ocean, crushed beneath Johanna Mason's feet. He awakes with a scream that roars up from the pit of his stomach. 

He stumbles into the adjoining bathroom, flicking on the dull light and splashing cold water on his raw eyes. He sucks in a shivering, trembling breaths and avoids making eye contact with himself in the mirror, leaning his head against the cool marble of the counter. 

His thoughts reek of death and decay, past and future. They suffocate him until he drifts into fitful sleep once again.

m m m

Fontanne's voice yanks him out of the next nightmare, sunlight blinding his eyes the moment he cracks them open. He finds himself still on the bathroom floor, stiff and feeling not even the slightest bit less exhausted. 

“Finnick!” Fontanne shakes his shoulder again, even though it's clear he's awake now. 

 

“What time is it?”

“Almost noon. Annie and Shizue have just gone off to get styled for their interviews.”

“Shit...I was going to coach them—“

“Relax, Finnick,” Fontanne helps him to his feet. “It's up to them now.”


	8. Surreality

“This is ridiculous,” Annie mutters, seemingly to herself. She fingers the pearls on her necklace; pink, white, and black and of all different sizes. 

“What's wrong?” Finnick asks, leaning against the wall next to her. 

“It's this necklace...why would they make it like this? With all the sizes and colors mixed up? It's maddening.”

She looks up at him then, sees his raised eyebrow. “I bet Nova could find you another one, if you'd like.”

Annie shakes her head, points her eyes at the ground. “I wouldn't want to be a burden.”

She's wearing a white lace dress, covered in ethereal patterns of sea life that come in and out of visibility as she walks. The sea animals aren't quite realistic looking, the fish all a bit shinier than they really are when you've been fishing them your whole life, but he understands that realism isn't really the point of the outfit. Or the interview, for that matter. 

Fontanne appears then, dragging Shizue, whose wearing a dark blue suit and has had his hair dyed a dark brown, instead of it's original sun bleached blonde, and styled so that the front sticks up in a little quiff. 

“At this rate we're going to be the last district to arrive!” Fontanne huffs, pushing the elevator button aggressively. “Don't know what Nebula was thinking, dying his hair at the last minute.”

“It makes his hair and skin contrast better,” Annie says as they board the elevator. “I think it's nice. They even did his eyebrows.”

Shizue smiles at her, then, and Finnick looks away. 

“They didn't tell me if it's ever going to wash out,” Shizue says in good humor. “How's anybody going to recognize me if my hair keeps changing?”

“Trust me, in the arena, when you're covered in blood and dirt, no one's going to care about your hair,” Finnick says, gloomier than it sounded in his head. 

“Alright!” Fontanne starts, with an unreadable glance Finnick's way. “Here we are!”

The elevator doors open to backstage, where the rest of the tributes have already been lined up by district. A few stylists scurry about, making last minute alterations to their obviously jittery charges. Fontanne elbows his way forward, slipping Annie and Shizue into their correct spot. 

“Nervous?” Finnick asks, locking eyes with Annie.

“Don't be,” Fontanne cuts in. “Just be your most interesting selves.” 

“Why didn't I think of that,” Annie mutters with a bitter little smile, with an eye roll behind Fontanne's back. Finnick snickers.

Fontanne leads Finnick through a side door and down a short flight of stairs, to the front row where it seems all the other mentors and escorts have taken root. Caesar does his usual introduction, full of enthusiasm, and demented cheering fills the room. 

The first two tributes are Cashmere's, and they might as well be made of plastic for all the individuality they show. But the Capitol is in love with plastic—accessories, surgeries, and gadgets—so the District Ones are, as always, a big hit. On District Two, Brutus' coaching is abundantly clear; they're both muscular, confident, and distant, with eyes that seem to be picturing your bloody, premature death. 

The District Three boy is witty, but too scrawny to put up much of a fight. The girl has blushing charm to her, but she, also, is too transparent in her lack of power to be anything to sneeze about. 

Finnick thinks of his own interview, and can practically see himself onscreen, cracking a grin and assuring Caesar that he had absolutely no doubts in his ability to be a formidable foe, despite his age. He had captivated the audience with one sentence, and had yet to let them go. 

Annie comes out first, tripping slightly on the front hem of her dress, causing her cheeks to turn rosy. Caesar laughs welcomingly, and offers a hand to help her sit down without incident. 

“So, I understand you prefer to be called Annie, yes?”

“Yes.”

“What's the story behind that?”

“It's just what my parents have always called me,” she's kept a pleasant smile on her face, but her eyes keep darting out and growing wide as she beholds the massive crowd. 

“What do they think of you're being in the Hunger Games this year?”

“Oh, well, as you know I didn't volunteer, so it was a bit of a shock...for all of us, really,” she replies mildly, careful not to mention the reality of the bone crushing, soul-killing agony it is to see your child get reaped. If Annie makes it down to the final eight, than it'll be clear to anyone with half a brain when they do the family interviews. 

Finnick tries very, very hard not to think of his father.

Focus. 

“Do you think it would be a shock to them if you won the Games, Annie?” Caesar asks, matching her soft tone of speaking. 

“Well, I certainly hope not,” she smiles. “That's a bit insulting, don't you think?”

Caesar roars with his contagious laughter, and airborne virus that sweeps across the crowd. Even Fontanne lets out a cautious little chuckle. 

“She really saved it there at the end,” he murmurs to Finnick. “Maybe that will make her a little more memorable.”

She walks swiftly back off the stage, and he suppresses the urge to meet her behind the curtains and ask her if she's okay. Shizue struts out, smiling mellowly, reaching out to shake Caesar's hand with grace and taking an easy seat where Annie was a moment before. 

“I see you've changed your hair!” Caesar says immediately, pointing to the Shizue's new color for the audience's sake.

“I'm afraid that was entirely the brilliance of my stylists,” Shizue replies coolly. 

“Well, it certainly suits you, Shizue,” Caesar laughs. “Now, tell me, what do you think is going to be your greatest strength in the arena?”

“To be completely honest, Caesar, I think my most important asset is simply confidence. I volunteered because I've been working my whole life. Building strength, building character, learning my trade. We in District Four are lucky enough to be brought up in the ways of survival. I think that's why we've been so successful in the past.” 

Well rehearsed, Finnick thinks. A little pompous, a little superior. The sponsors are going to eat it up. 

“With that, and a mentor like Finnick Odair, you do seem to have a lot going for you!”

At Finnick's name, a shadow passes over Shizue's features. He hides it quickly, but it's too late. Caesar has sensed it. 

“So, tell us, what is it like being mentored by Finnick? Is he as charming as he is on camera?” Caesar is on the edge of his seat in anticipation for the answer he'll receive.

Shizue pauses, a tiny, knowing smile on his lips. Maybe he's reliving their icy conversation the night before, trying to calculate the best way to call Finnick a heartless bastard on television. Finnick almost wants him to do it, wants the crowd to gasp in disbelief. Wants to feel the cameras all pan to his reaction and be sorely disappointed when he only nods in agreement.

Finally, Shizue replies.

“Finnick is not what you'd expect,” he says simply. “And his Games were remarkable. He certainly knows what he's doing, when it comes to winning.”

Finnick doesn't wince, keeps his face well organized and contented smile on his lips. He keeps his mind blank, too, because dwelling on being called an elegant, effective murderer is just too much for him right now. 

Shizue must be more perceptive than he initially hypothesized, Finnick thinks, for him to know how hard that particular comment would hit. 

The buzzer goes off, then, and the two men shake hands and Shizue disappears the way he came. Fontanne's eyes lock onto the side of his face, but Finnick ignores him.


	9. A Proper Send-Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to anyone still reading this! Much love!

Finnick wakes up at two in the morning the day of the Games, files into the bathroom and lies down in the bathtub to prevent any further attempts at sleep. He doesn't have the energy to wake up three more times tonight—granted, he doesn't have the energy to stay up all night, either, but his choices are shit, as per usual. 

After forty-five minutes of staring at the tiled ceiling, he climbs out of the empty tub and throws on a few shreds of clothing. He's been wearing approximately the same outfit since he's been in the Capital, but no one's said a word and he couldn't possibly care less. He wanders aimlessly around his suite for a few moments, digs around in the bedside table for something to read and finds an index of training center services. Pool, bar, training center, spa, and twenty-four hour gym. The latter, inexplicably, appeals to him, and he finds himself wandering toward the elevator in a slight daze. 

The gym is fully lit, though empty, and though he's shoeless and hasn't the faintest idea how to operate any of the machinery he loses a solid two hours down there, sprinting on the treadmill until his lungs burn and using something called a “rowing machine” which he assumes is training for some Capital pastime. He's soaked with sweat by the time he limps back to his bedroom at five, but he's overcome with an intriguing kind of exhaustion—not the kind that comes with being constantly assaulted by memories and fighting off the horror that inevitably accompanies them, but a tiredness that is almost tendering, perhaps simpler. It makes him tired enough that his mind doesn't have the energy to fight him. 

When he crawls between the sheets, he sleeps at a depth that he hardly remembers, but must have been commonplace for him before two years ago. When he awakes, it's not from dreams but from orange morning light. 

At six he hears shuffling feet outside his door, and he peeks his head out just in time to see Annie being lead out of her room with Nova at her side. He realizes coldly that he's not really said a proper goodbye to either of his tributes, not given them any real advice that will encompass their experience. He pauses a few beats, then follows on silent feet. 

m m m

He arrives in the blank, gunmetal colored corridor to the strong suspicion that he's not supposed to be here. This is a place for tributes and stylists, but he can't help thinking that if he were being sent off to his death Nova would be the last person he would want to try to exact comfort from. 

It's not long before he sees Cashmere appear down the hallway, perfectly confident, unworried about her own little rule violation. She nods at Finnick as though they share some sort of understanding, or soon will. She strolls into the room marked for the District One female tribute and doesn't look back. Courage boosted, he makes for Annie's room and slides open the door of fogged glass. 

Nova's already left, and he walks in on Annie taking deep, shuttering breaths to ready herself. She studiously avoids looking at the glass tube in the corner, directing her eyes toward the unrelenting floor. When the door opens, she doesn't look up. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks lowly, trying to sound like his father, even though it causes a jab of pain between his ribs. His father had had a knack for calmness, and it was a facade Finnick never saw breached until the day he was reaped. 

Annie's head shoots up as though as fast as a gunshot. Her eyes are wide, but he notices how they soften when she realizes it's him. 

“Fabulous,” she croaks. They've dressed her in fur-lined boots and a parka. If it's going to be cold, than she must know she's at an even further disadvantage. Major bodies of water may be frozen, and her swimming skills useless. 

He surprises himself when he says, “It's going to be alright. Stick with Shizue, get with the Careers.” He approaches on sure feet, even though his advice is conceited. Joining with Shizue will only make it worse, when it comes down to the killing, but Shizue's protection is the only hope she has. “Above all, be alert.”

She sniffles slightly, her eyes far away. “I think I'm starting to understand what you meant the other night. How winning isn't really winning. I know I should be picturing life afterwards but I can't. I'm not sure how.”

For a few long moments Finnick's not sure what to say. He's amazed that she understands, and then infinitely saddened. He's been selfish, in taking away this small sliver of hope she may have entertained. Now, she knows the truth: no one truly gets out alive. 

When words fail, he finds himself stepping forward to wrap her in a hug. Her honesty, he's noticed, has a way of ingratiating her to people. He feels as though he knows her far better than these last few days have allowed, and wishes desperately, and somewhat unexpectedly, that he could know more. When the countdown begins and they pull away, he feels her lips on his cheek, and makes the mistake of thinking about what could have been. 

She steps into the tube, and all he can say is, “I'm sorry.”

It's in the last few seconds of the countdown that he's aware of his legs propelling him violently out of Annie's room and into the next. He knows he's wrong, that he's a hypocrite and a shit mentor and is going to get them both killed or worse, but when he sees Shizue's tube beginning to lift into the arena he can't stop himself from yelling “Take care of her!” hoarsely, his own voice barely recognizable. 

And then Shizue's nodding, nodding even when he sees the contradiction from Finnick's words from a few nights ago. Even though he sees the selfish hypocrisy of Finnick's wish. For a few strange moments, they understand each other, and then they're both alone. 

m m m

On Level 0 of the training center, the mentors have gathered again. This time, though, there are others milling about too—well dressed Capital citizens, with avoxes catering to their whims. Finnick can only assume these are the sponsors he's meant to be wooing. 

In the each corner of the room, a kiosk has been activated, and while not in use it goes through a rotation of the tributes' faces along with their basic information. These, clearly, are how sponsors contribute money and how mentors send gifts. And at the head of the room, a wall of screens has lit up since the last time Finnick was there, showing all camera angles in the arena, now all centered on the cornucopia. 

The Games have truly begun. 

He sits down next to Johanna Mason on autopilot, eyes glued to the screen. He's aware of her trying to be flippant, wanting to appear as though she accepts the fact her tributes are hopeless as she unravels the loose fabric of her sweater, but nevertheless her eyes flit up to the action every few seconds, tracing the actions of those she is responsible for. The arena is what Finnick had predicted upon seeing Annie's attire. It's a white hellscape, punctuated by a dark forest in the distance. On the horizon is a massive gray wall, it's purpose unidentifiable. The snow is knee deep, nothing like the light sprinkling that occasionally falls in District Four. Shizue, though powerful, is slowed by it, and he signals desperately to Annie until they're waddling through the snow together toward the splayed weapons and supplies ahead of them. 

“Ready for the exciting life of licking the balls of sponsors?” Johanna smirks at him. “And I do mean literally.”

“Johanna,” Jom, the morphling addict, scolds. His breath smells as though he's recently vomited. 

Johanna sneers at Finnick again, but there's something of a friendliness in it that makes him think that animosity may just be her only method of interacting with the world. 

A moment later, though, her face goes entirely expressionless and her muscles tense beside him as her male tribute has his head split by Shizue, who's gained himself two spears and a hunting knife. 

She's silent for a second, and then looks back down at her sweater and mutters a barely audible, “Fucking hell.”

Finnick isn't sure if he should apologize. He doesn't.

Jom reaches down to give Johanna's shoulder a brief squeeze, but she doesn't react. Finnick watches Annie snatch up a backpack and several throwing knives. She and Shizue bargain quickly with the Careers with their hands up in peace, reminding them of their friendship during training, and while they easily admit Shizue into the group they look at Annie with some skepticism. Shizue, admirably, adds here that “it's both or neither” and Annie gives him a grateful smile. They're in. Finnick lets out a breath he'd forgotten he was holding. 

They pick through the cornucopia without incident, as the outer districts have all been killed off or fled in the direction of the black woods. District One's Sequin Asba wisely proposes that they get hunting soon, and it's clear to everyone in the party that he doesn't just mean animals. It's discussed briefly that the District Seven girl, Folia, who scored an eight has escaped the initial bloodbath and is probably their biggest threat. The boy from District Two says he saw her partner with the massive eighteen year old from District Eight. They'll be a formidable duo, but, as Sequin laughs, no match for the six of them. 

And then they set off for the woods, snowflakes falling, Annie and Shizue matching each other stride for stride.


	10. Game Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The saga continues...at this rate it'll only take me ten years to finish the story! If you're still reading, I love you.

In the forest, the main cameras keep a strict eye on the bulging Career pack. Annie and Shizue stumble behind doggedly, their boots sinking deep into the snow. They're already showing fatigue while their comrades forge ahead with boisterous laughter. Shizue holds a hand out to Annie to help her over a log and they stay linked as they continue forward. The camera doesn't fail to notice, and Caesar offers a salacious exhalation of “Ooooh! It seems our friends from District Four are very close indeed.”

Finnick tries not to react. He tries not to think about his manipulation, a manipulation probably futile. Shizue will protect her at the expense of himself because he's seen the same thing in her that Finnick has just got the vaguest grasp of. And then he'll be gone and Annie still won't have a chance, leaving Finnick to confirm what he already knows: it's all pointless. 

“You know about this?” Haymitch Abernathy appears next to Jom, brandishing a tumbler full of amber liquid and gesturing at Annie and Shizue's hands. 

Finnick gives a noncommittal grunt in response. 

“Would've been interesting if you'd played it up beforehand,” Haymitch ruminates, half to himself. “A new angle, at the very least.”

Finnick shrugs this off, when taking into account that Haymitch Abernathy is really not the sort he needs to be taking mentoring advice from. With his full attention back on the screens, he sees the Careers finally catch up with a tribute, identified as from District Three with a training score of Five. Sequin Asba makes short work of him, and his district partner berates him for not leaving her any. Finnick is aware of Cashmere sitting expressionlessly in a chair off to his left. She beckons easily to the nearest sponsor who's eyeing her with the most curiosity, and after only a few words has sent him scampering off to one of the corner kiosks. 

Night falls fast but the Careers don't show any sign of slowing down. The kills begin to rack up and the adrenaline is clearly surging. Shizue makes quick work of the District Six girl and suitably proves himself to his allies. The forest is in pitch black by the time Sequin and his cohort show any sign of boredom, and that's only after extinguishing the light and life of someone unwise enough to start a cooking fire. They stomp out the coals, drag off the body and begin to settle in among the melted snow, in the cocoon of nearby tree roots. 

Sequin and Sparkle, predictably, call the first watch. 

The District Two tributes bed down with relative ease, confident in their position, but Shizue is smart enough to know better. A camera locks on his look of disquietude. “You should sleep,” he tells Annie, who's picked up on his unease. She crawls into a sleeping bag, regardless, though, and is out like a light. Her trust in him, Finnick hopes, is well placed, but the soft look Shizue gives her sleeping face is enough to eradicate all doubt. He lies down beside her, one eye clandestinely monitoring the vague silhouettes of Sequin and Sparkle, sitting only a few feet away. 

With things looking sanguine in the Career camp, the main cameras swivel to give updates on everyone still alive. Most of the outer districts have scattered, unallied and looking remarkably terrified as they're faced with night and lowering temperatures. Some simply curl up in the snow. Night, Finnick knows, has a way of making you indifferent to your fate. It's easy to forget that there's still a sun that will rise. 

The only other tributes not looking directionless are Folia, of District Seven, and her massive ally Bex, of Eight. They remain plunging through the forest, well armed from a brash descent on the cornucopia and well trained in the snow. 

“How long do you estimate 'til we reach it?” Bex asks, not even breathless despite the rapid clip. 

“By tomorrow night, if all is as it appears,” Folia answers without hesitation. Her features are sharp and so is the plan clearly formulating behind her eyes. She carries a bag pressed to her chest, and she hasn't let it slip from her shoulders since she pulled it deliberately from the cornucopia. 

“Definitely a team to watch,” Caesar gushes. 

Finnick looks at Johanna expectantly, and thinks that what he mistook for flippancy earlier must have been something more benign. Her eyes are still aimed at the ground but there's the tiniest hint of a smile on her lips. She doesn't think Folia is a lost cause at all. 

m m m

Time drags on, and though Finnick is vaguely aware that sleep is something he will need he can't break his eyes from the constant feed. The first night is always critical. Not always the most decisive, but undeniably salient. 

It's nearly half three in the morning when Sequin and Sparkle begin to whisper.

Shizue has nodded off, against his will. Even though Finnick knows it can't be helped, that it would be a monumental task to keep awake after such an exhausting day, he feels a stiff, blood red anger roll through him. There's no time for his ire to come to any sort of fruition, though, as Sequin and Sparkle have abruptly stopped conversing. The room, now populated by only a few drunk potential sponsors and the more die-hard mentors, goes silent with them. 

In the next seconds, the tributes' movement are so quick Finnick's tired eyes can hardly follow. Sequin rotates 180 degrees and puts his scythe through the District Two girl's head before the her eyes are even open. Sparkle isn't as quick with the District Two boy, but it's only a matter of seconds before she's shoved her long sword up through his rib cage and he's crumpled to the ground. It's too dark to see his entrails but Finnick is familiar enough with death to know they're there. 

Shizue is roused as soon as he hears the sound of soaring steel and Annie, too, is flailing into consciousness, yanking at her sleeping bag ineffectually as Sparkle removes her blade from the disemboweled boy. Shizue is on his feet with his spear in his hand impossibly quickly but Sequin is quicker, slashing with his scythe. Shizue leaps backward but the blade has landed—a long gash appears against the tan skin of his neck. 

Meanwhile, Annie, is still on her knees, reaching blindly for a throwing knife as Sparkle stalks toward her. Annie throws sloppily and the knife only cuts a light slit in Sparkle's bicep. She makes the mistake of looking to see if it's serious and Annie sees her chance, locating a second knife and hurtling herself forward. Sparkle, caught off guard, finds herself with a blade pressed against her neck, just as Sequin is closing in on effusively bleeding Shizue.

“Stop!” Annie cries, and Sequin turns. Shizue sinks to his knees, gurgling slightly. 

Annie is dwarfed by the well built Sparkle, but she's got the larger girl pinned nonetheless, the tip of her blade pressed at Sparkle's swallowing jugular. 

“Are you trying to bargain?” Sequin sneers. “Because I'm not sure you know how this works.”

In one smooth motion, he steps forward and cuts Sparkle from navel to chin. 

She goes limp in Annie's arms, covering the smaller girl in blood. Annie lets out the barest of screams, letting the corpse drop, and when the camera pans up again, Sequin has stationed himself behind Shizue, scythe poised. Shizue, having applied pressure to the wound, seems to have staunched some of his own bleeding, and the wound doesn't look as serious as Finnick initially assumed. But with the glittering scythe so close it's hard to believe he'll get lucky again. 

“Don't,” Annie begs. She's holding her bloodied hands slightly up and away from her torso, as though unsure what to do with them now that they're soiled. 

“Why not?” Sequin shrugs. Then he grabs Shizue's hair, tips back his head, and rips through flesh and bone with reckless abandon. There's a wet shredding sound, and then a crack that seems to echo across time and space. Annie shrieks, her voice cracking, bloody hands over her ears. 

Sequin almost seems surprised when Shizue's head comes off in his hands. 

But not for long. 

“Run!” It takes Finnick a moment to realize he's shouted it out loud. No one in the room spares him a glance. 

But as though Annie heard him, she turns on her heel and plunges into the night, away from Sequin's scythe, hands still covering her ears.


	11. Shock

Annie's legs carry her for an unfeasibly long time. She becomes a desperate, agile beast, plummeting through the forest and through the icy snow, her hands locked over her ears. Her breath comes as a rasp and cold tears run down her cheeks. The blood smeared across her face stands black in contrast to her skin. 

Sequin pursues her for a bit, but she's lighter and adrenaline pushes her out of sight quickly. A hovercraft comes for the bodies of the District Two tributes and Shizue. Sequin looks around the now blood stained camp and the camera picks up the hint of a satisfied smile on his lips. How quaint. 

“Sequin Asba seems to have proven himself fantastically ruthless,” Caesar offers, and Claudius giggles delightedly.

The main feed whirls back around to Annie. She doesn't slow until first light, when she reaches the edge of the woods again and is looking out at the cornucopia. Her eyes swivel over her surroundings—the tall pine trees above her, the blanket of snow over dead leaves and limbs. All she has is one knife and the clothes on her back. She's clearly still in shock, her ears relentlessly covered, and she sits down in the embrace of some tree roots to sob. 

“District Four's Annalee Cresta does not seem to be handling things well,” Caesar murmurs, with faux gravity. 

“Not everyone has the heart of a victor,” Claudius adds airily. “It's a shame that more of her mentor didn't rub off on her. If there was ever a true champion, it was Finnick Odair.”

Johanna Mason, lying on the couch beside him, snorts. She's been dozing on and off through the night, keeping one eye on Folia and Bex's progress. Haymitch has wandered off drunkenly, both his tributes dead in the bloodbath. Jom, sneaking off periodically to some unknown location, has not slept a wink, blank eyes directed unceasingly toward the horror. Cashmere, too, has not slept, not even looking at Brutus when her tributes killed both of his. With the onset of morning, the ranks of possible sponsors have returned, and it finally occurs to Finnick that Annie has nothing, and probably isn't looking like too attractive a candidate at the moment. He breaks his eyes from the screen for the first time in what feels like hours, looks around the sea of unfamiliar faces. No one seems to notice his presence, everyone preoccupied by the open bar and tables of hors d'oeuvres. He looks back at Annie, and thinks that if any other tribute approached her now she'd be dead. He'd have to watch her die, and there's not a damn thing he'd be able to do about it. He's not sure he'd be able to handle that. He's not sure what the alternative is. 

He's trying to keep his breathing under control when he feels Johanna's shoe poke him in the ribs. He turns to her and she motions toward a woman standing ten feet away, champagne glass in her hand at nine in the morning. Her hair is an unnatural shade of onyx, her eyes the same along with the floral tattoos that spill from each tear duct. Her skin is a slightly shiny olive. When Finnick meets her eyes, she gives an inviting twist of her lips. 

“Who's that?” Finnick murmurs. 

Johanna shrugs, but Jom gives him a piercing, bloodshot look and asks, “Does it matter what her name is?”

Finnick slips to his feet and as he approaches the woman he pastes on that cheeky, welcoming grin, hoping it will overshadow the granite dashes under each eye and the shaking of his extremities. She appraises him coolly, and he notes the universal symbol that is the flash of gold on a finger of her left hand, standing in contrast to the look in her ebony eyes. 

He reaches out a hand once in range and the soft words “Finnick Odair” slither off his tongue. 

“Zavala Moray,” she replies, fingernails sliding across his palm. He's aware that there's a game to be played here. Superficial, perhaps, but the Capitol is all about superficiality and Finnick would have to be blind and deaf to not have learned how to follow the pattern. “Eventful games...so far,” she comments, under a veneer of innocuousness. 

“I suspect this is only the tip of the iceberg,” he adds smoothly. “I would know.”

The longer he looks at her, the colder his blood turns. She's as painted and prim as any other Capitol citizen, as flirtatious as anyone presented with an attractive celebrity, but there's something dangerous beneath her facade. A darkness that's not part of her make-up. She's formidable, and something in her demeanor makes him want to fixate on the twelve inches of distance between them. 

Zavala swirls her neon drink with a forced nonchalance, then looks up to sneer at him without the slightest restraint. “And in your professional opinion, what do you think it would take for a tribute to gain an advantage, at this point in the proceedings?”

He allows his eyes to slide toward Annie, on screen. Tears still rush down her face, and through her throaty, wet breathing the camera picks up on her muttering to herself in incoherent syllables. She's digging herself into the snow to try to keep warm, using one hand while keeping the other against her head. Periodically, she shifts back onto her haunches and closes her eyes, shutting out all sound and sight. There's so much she needs, how is he supposed to prioritize? Can he send himself floating down on a silver parachute to save her? 

“Food,” he says definitively to Zavala, thinking that a few calories might snap Annie back into rational thinking. “And maybe something to keep warm.”

Zavala's fierce eyes search him from head to toe. He feels hunted. He can feel his fourteen year old self urging him to resort to arena instincts: fight or flight. Feeling this woman's breath on his face only makes him want to sprint. 

“Curious,” Zavala smirks, and then excuses herself without another word. His eyes follow her, and though she takes a roundabout route to keep him on his toes, it's not long before she stands in front of a kiosk. 

By noon, the first parachute tumbles down toward Annie through the thick pines.

m m m 

Annie's curled in a cocoon of sleeping bag and snow, arranging stray sticks by length and width with one languid elbow, when the cameras all pan toward the cornucopia. They zoom in to identify Sequin, looking only slightly bedraggled, rifling through the remaining weapons. He's already loaded down by two swords and an archery set, but is undeterred. Along the edge of the woods, a girl from District Three eyes him with a brutal rationality. She pulls an arrow from the quiver on her back and notches it, pulls it to her cheek to aim, so careful and quiet that she could just be a branch stirring in the wind. 

Just as District Three's eyes squint in preparation for letting it fly, on the other side of the forest, Annie moves. 

Annie's intention is unclear, but Caesar helpfully offers up that perhaps seeing Sequin initiated some primal desire for revenge. It's true, perhaps, as she wrestles herself from her sleeping bag with a vengeance, grabs for her knife, locks her eyes onto his deliberate movements and breaks from the treeline. But her entire plan of action is never known. Startled, the girl from District Three lets go in the direction of new movement. The arrow flies over Sequin's head and the camera locks onto Annie's eyes as she sees it's rapid, unavoidable arc. She may have a millisecond to duck but she doesn't take it. 

Finnick finds himself on his feet unexpectedly, every muscle clenched. 

The arrow screams into a tree. Annie collapses into the snow in a pool of blood, concealed by the undergrowth. Finnick finds himself unable to breathe as cameras pan back toward Sequin, who looks in the direction that the arrow flew but can't see Annie's unmoving form. He directs his attention to the District Three girl, who's realized that her cover is blown and is already pounding into the woods. Sequin gains on her quickly, regardless of her head start, and sends a spear through the left side of her sternum. She collapses and the cannon goes off. 

Sequin regroups himself at the cornucopia, but his eyes keep dodging over to the treeline, focusing on the arrow now drawing sap out of the trunk of a pine. The camera zooms in on Annie, now making feeble movements to crawl back toward her sleeping bag. The arrow seems to have sliced across her forehead, splitting the skin shallowly through her eyebrow and nearly to her hairline. It's a face wound, though, so it bleeds profusely across the entire right half of her face. With one hand on her ear and the other pressed to the wound, she slithers back into her snow cave to wait. For what, though, she seems unsure. Or possibly just indifferent. 

Sequin, though, is on the move, approaching the arrow-impaled tree to find the trail of blood Annie has left. Annie, lying in her hole, has her eyes closed and seems to be focusing on her breathing. She doesn't hear the crunching footsteps of his boots on the snow. 

Finnick has his hands at his sides, his fists clenched. He screams at Annie ineffectually, “Get up! Get up get up get up!”

He looks around the room frantically, but no one offers any help. Everyone is either as rapt as he is or drunk, but they're all equally impotent. It's when Sequin is only ten feet from Annie, scythe raised and feet silent, that the tide shifts. 

Folia and Bex have reached their destination.


End file.
